Justsmile Issue 3: Reflections are Protections

What do you want your legacy to be? Justsmile Issue 3 ruminates on ideas and people who are forging their paths, anchoring their expression with personal, collective, or familial history – honoring those who came before them.

Cover 1 features TREMAINE EMORY opening up about life and death, friendships and family, artifice and authenticity; welcoming Justsmile into his home at a personal time in his life during the process of physical rehabilitation, after a near-death encounter.

Cover 2 features SAGE ELSESSER. What does honest expression look like? The journey of self-discovery and giving yourself grace, working from a place of intention. As NAVY BLUE, SAGE ELSESSER released his album ‘Ways of Knowing’ this year, on a mission to be his authentic self.

Cover 3 features TEEZO TOUCHDOWN, a music genre-bending artist from Beaumont, Texas, is a semblance of ushering in a new wave of creativity that has been born from the need to be innovative with few resources. 

Plus: a retrospective on the defiant Californian-designer WILLY CHAVARRIA, a lesson in fostering space and safety for the Black queer community in the 80s and 90s with ALAN BELL of BLK PUBLISHING, diving into AWOL ERIZKU’S cosmic affinities, honoring Houston’s Eldorado Ballroom with SAINT HERON, the melting heritages of New York’s emerging designers, music meets motion with IMMANUEL WILKINS and JA’TOVIA GARY, taste fills space with DOMINIQUE PETIT-FRÈRE and NATHANAEL COX, and much more.